Thursday, October 8, 2009

pulsed numbers

My code is a system of pulsed numbers. For example:

one: |
two: ||
three: |||
etc.

What could be simpler, right?

But I am greedy. I want to represent zero.

Ho Ho, you say. That's impossible.

Well suppose I did it. What would this accomplish?

It would establish placeness. Zero holds a place. That's all it does. It doesn't specify a value. But if I succeed in representing it with a pulsed number, that number specifies place holding for that number, in other words, a number base system.

If the pulsed number I succeed in representing zero with is N, then the base of the number base system it represents is N. I can expect then that no pulses greater than N will occur in a multipulse sample. And in fact, this is exactly how I establish a size of pulse for zero: it is the largest of all pulses occurring in a multipulse sample.

So if I listen to a star in the sky which I suspect is the home system to a race of intelligent creatures who want to inform the galaxy that they are intelligent, I will look for a multipulse sample with a largest pulse size, because such a sample proves this race uses place values for numbers. I would look for the sample to repeat and I would use my place value interpretation to tell me what number is being represented and I will compare that number to my inventory of transcendental numbers, such as pi and e.

I don't need to know how to decode the signal to get numbers. It will just be a pulse. Nothing heavy technologically.

Why aren't we sending pi like this ourselves?

I suggest we do so. Time is wasting.